You are here

Louisville Street section to be upgraded

A street overcrowded with both cars and pedestrians could see the addition of a turn lane and possibly bike lanes and sidewalks on both sides.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation will fund the widening of roughly six miles of Louisville Street between Yellowjacket Drive and Lynn Lane with a $1.2 million grant, 20 percent of which the city will match.
“What you see here is conceptual,” said Aaron McNeal, engineer for Neal-Schaffer Inc., during a public interest meeting on the project Tuesday night at the Sportsplex.
Currently the proposed prroject portion of Louisville Street is a two-lane street of 24-foot lanes that would provide plenty of room for improvements with minimal right-of-way difficulties, officials hope.
Residents who attended the meeting filled out comment sheets on whether or not Louisville street should have sidewalks and bike lands and whether it should have them on both sides.
Jim Gafford, chair of the city’s Transportation Committee, suggested a low-cost striping of bike lanes to extend all the way to Highway 12.
Current plans for the Louisville Street widening project could serve as a connector for the proposed Lynn Lane mutli-modal project that could connect four of the city’s heavily trafficked streets.
McNeal expects that widening Louisville Street would increase its safety for pedestrians, increase traffic flow efficiency and improve existing roadway surface.
His plans will materialize based on the feedback he gets from residents.
Opinion forms need to be submitted by the end of the week.